John Feeley has resigned, and no longer felt able to serve Trump

The US ambassador to Panama has resigned, saying he no longer felt able to serve President Donald Trump. John Feeley, a career diplomat and former Marine Corps pilot, communicated his departure to State Department officials in late December.

It was not a response to Mr Trump’s alleged use of the word “shithole” to describe Haiti and African countries, US officials said.

Mr Trump denies using the term.

Mr John Feeley, one of the department’s Latin America specialists and among its senior most officers, made clear that he had come to a place where he no longer felt able to serve under Mr Trump.

“As a junior foreign service officer, I signed an oath to serve faithfully the president and his administration in an apolitical fashion, even when I might not agree with certain policies,” Mr John Feeley said, according to an excerpt of a resignation letter read to the Reuters news agency.

“My instructors made clear that if I believed I could not do that, I would be honour bound to resign. That time has come.”

A State Department spokeswoman confirmed Mr Feeley’s departure, saying that he “has informed the White House, the Department of State, and the Government of Panama of his decision to retire for personal reasons, as of March 9 of this year”.

“Everyone has a line they won’t cross’

Speaking to reporters, Under Secretary of State Steve Goldstein said he was aware of Mr Feeley’s planned departure on Thursday morning, before Mr Trump’s alleged use of the vulgar term, and said the ambassador was leaving for “personal reasons”.

“Everyone has a line that they will not cross,” Mr Goldstein said.

“If the ambassador feels that he can no longer serve … then he has made the right decision for himself and we respect that.”

US officials declined to discuss Mr Feeley’s reasons for leaving the department after a long career, much of which was spent working on Latin American issues.

Some of Mr Trump’s policies have been widely regarded within the region as hostile to Latin America.

The Trump administration has taken a tougher stance on immigration from Latin America, most notably with moves to expel hundreds of thousands of immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti and Nicaragua who benefited from temporary protection status after natural disasters.

Mr Feeley’s career included serving as the number two official in the State Department bureau that deals with Latin America, as deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Mexico City and as director for Central American affairs in Washington.